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> Air monitoring equipment from Markes comes top in US EPA field trials

Air monitoring equipment from Markes International comes top in US EPA field trials

Tuesday, 6 September 2016 at 4:15:PM

Markes International (Cincinnati, OH, USA) has come first and​ second in independent field-trials of air monitoring equipment carried out by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The results of this second rigorous phase of assessment were announced on 10 August to an audience of air-monitoring experts at the National
Ambient Air Monitoring Conference in St Louis, MO, and re-inforce the results
of the 2014 laboratory trials, in which Markes’ systems also came out on top.

The report summarises the results of two intensive
45-day field assessments of six commercially-available air monitoring systems, organised to assess their suitability for continuous monitoring of 28 volatile organic air
pollutants by the US network of Photochemical Assessment Monitoring Stations
(PAMS).

Superior performance

From a performance perspective, both the Agilent/Markes
TD–GC–dual FID system and the Thermo Scientific/Markes TD–GC–MS setup showed clearly
superior results to all other instruments. Both systems were able to report on 100% of
the target compounds, had very low levels of instrumental bias, and showed
excellent precision between replicate measurements.

Dr Massimo Santoro, Technical Marketing Director at Markes, said,
“We’re absolutely delighted to have come out on top in both the laboratory and field
trials for this EPA assessment, and believe these results are a strong
endorsement both of our TD systems and the close collaborations we enjoy with
Agilent and Thermo Scientific. It’s worth noting that although the assessment
focused on compounds of relevance to urban air pollution, the same equipment is
also ideal for monitoring a wide range of volatile organic compounds, including
odorous sulfur species.”

Worldwide significance

Since 1993, the PAMS program has required US states and
local environmental agencies to measure volatile hydrocarbons in urban areas
affected by significant ground-level ozone pollution. Much of the air
monitoring equipment in the current network is now over 15 years old and needs
replacing, so the US EPA commissioned these laboratory and field trials in
order to inform the choice of the best automated GC technologies for the
purpose.

Dr Santoro adds “As well as assisting those choosing
equipment to be used in the US PAMS network, we believe that this authoritative
report will be inspected closely by air-monitoring laboratories worldwide that
are keen to choose the best system for their own programmes. Technical
capabilities are of course fundamental to this, but it’s worth pointing out
that the report also describes in detail the practicalities of using the
candidate systems. In this regard too, Markes’ systems impressed the assessors
with their outstanding ease-of-use, complementing the headline benefits of
analytical performance.”

Full reports of both the first (laboratory) and second (field) phase​s are available on the US EPA website.